The multiple crises facing our world today warrant critical reflection of how we think of bordering, sovereignty, belonging and solidarity. Today, borders are transforming in multiple forms as communities, technologies, infrastructures, and natural forces interact, blending physical and virtual boundaries together. Borders are negotiated in new ways, on the ground and “in the cloud”, with profound implications on our understanding of actors, displacements, multiplicities, and sovereignties. The tactics people use to navigate contemporary borders, the historical linkages and narratives of borders, and alternative visions of borders and borderlands are all important parts of these transformations. How people navigate and make sense of these turbulent times remains a key question to be answered. Tracing historical linkages and dynamics can unveil diverse narratives on borders and sovereignty, inviting voices, memories, and imaginaries towards alternative visions of the present and future.
The theme of the 8th ABRN conference is “Negotiating Borders” across Asia. The four sub-themes - Actors, Displacements, Multiplicities, Sovereignties - offer specific points of engagement, with broader possibilities of cross-fertilisation of ideas and research directions.
We invite conceptually innovative papers, based on fresh research, in order to develop new perspectives in the study of Asian borderlands and its broader geographical reach, especially connections to other world regions and continents. Submissions are invited from scholars, writers, policy studies researchers, artists, filmmakers, activists, and journalists, among others.
Only a small number of individual papers will be selected. We therefore encourage you to submit a full panel proposal. We will consider proposals for panels and roundtables that have a thematic focus, are of a comparative character, and involve scholars or practitioners affiliated with different institutions.
The deadline to send in panel, roundtable and paper proposals is 1 November 2024.
Please visit https://www.iias.asia/events/negotiating-asian-borders for more details, and to submit proposals. Participants will be notified in March 2025.